Please check my wiring diagram: DiMarzio Super Switch

Hi, folks! I can follow a diagram, but making modifications strays outside my knowledge base a wee bit. I want to wire up a couple humbuckers I made with a DiMarzio Super Switch, using this diagram as a starting point http://www.dimarzio.com/sites/defaul..._ep1112web.pdf, with some changes to positions 2 and 4. If I drew it right, it should work like this...

The change I made to the 2 and 4 positions is instead of selecting inside/outside coils, it selects the top/bottom coils. The reason for this is the content of the pickups. The neck north and bridge south are slug coils wound with 43awg and carrying neodymium magnets; the neck south and bridge north are blade coils wound with 42awg and carrying ceramic8 magnets. This is an experiment, clearly, and I want to isolate the different types of coils to hear what they sound like. If they don't end up sounding particularly different, there are some other cool switching diagrams on the DiMarzio website.

Looks good, except if I'm reading it right, the drawing should show the neck N and S in the same orientation as the bridge. the coil IDs on the left-hand side of the page has them flipped in relation to the bridge. Is that intentional?

edit: I'm not sure if you know this or not, but pay close attention to the pickup manufacturer's wiring diagram to get phasing and polarity right. There's no standard on what the colors mean. Each brand is different.

Looks good, except if I'm reading it right, the drawing should show the neck N and S in the same orientation as the bridge. the coil IDs on the left-hand side of the page has them flipped in relation to the bridge. Is that intentional?

edit: I'm not sure if you know this or not, but pay close attention to the pickup manufacturer's wiring diagram to get phasing and polarity right. There's no standard on what the colors mean. Each brand is different.

If I want the neck and bridge to operate in humbucking in position 3 (all on), then they need to be opposite polarity, right? So, the norths are in and the souths are out (or viceversa). Then, when I select positions 2 and 4, I'll be getting a north and a south from each coil for humbucking, as well.

If I want the neck and bridge to operate in humbucking in position 3 (all on), then they need to be opposite polarity, right? So, the norths are in and the souths are out (or viceversa). Then, when I select positions 2 and 4, I'll be getting a north and a south from each coil for humbucking, as well.

Reading the drawing you supplied as a schematic, all I'm saying is that for the neck HB, the polarity and the wire colors don't match up with the bridge. That may or may not be confusing to anyone but me.

For position 3, since the two humbuckers are fully utilized, there's no additional noise cancelling to be gained by adjusting the polarities. However, you can get an out-of-phase relationship. Again, using the wire colors as a guide, I don't think that's what you intended.

The wiring diagram is not correct.
In pos. 3 both humbuckers have to be the same polarity.
So if you flip one over, then 2 & 4 will not be correct.
You have the general idea, I've done that before and it works good.
You just have to get all the polarities correct.
T

Technicians Run the World, but Bankers, Lawyers, and Accountants, Take All The Credit!
Keep Rockin! B_T
Terry

So, let me back up here... am I just making this up, or is it convention to mount humbuckers with neck and bridge North coils facing in? Ah, but of course, you still wire them in phase. I drew this up under the assumption that it was the polarity that gave the neck+bridge combo its hum-cancelling. Huh. So, I should just follow the DiMarzio diagram and go with inside/outside for positions 2 and 4.

Wow, I'm really needing some help. Here's another basic question about the Super Switch for future reference: I drew my diagram with the assumption that the right side of the switch gives the full humbucker, while the left side is the tap. Is that correct?

You can wire a super switch several different ways.
S. D. has another layout.Wiring Diagram
You can see the splits on the right side.
You can ground them both, put output on both, or put ground on one, and output on one to get the RWRP effect you were looking for.
T

Technicians Run the World, but Bankers, Lawyers, and Accountants, Take All The Credit!
Keep Rockin! B_T
Terry

Here's another basic question about the Super Switch for future reference: I drew my diagram with the assumption that the right side of the switch gives the full humbucker, while the left side is the tap. Is that correct?

Well, it's a switch. It just is. There are no rules

I have these in two of my guitars. I think they are versatile, can be used for almost anything that I can think of. I have them set up to make selections among three pickups, some with taps. I'm sure there are more ways to use them than what I've thought of, so my advice is for you to not feel 'limited' by what they can do.

You can wire a super switch several different ways.
S. D. has another layout.Wiring Diagram
You can see the splits on the right side.
You can ground them both, put output on both, or put ground on one, and output on one to get the RWRP effect you were looking for.
T

Hey, this diagram makes MUCH more sense to my feeble electronics brain. And it uses my colors, to boot!

So, to clarify: even though it illustrates slugs in, screws out, are both pickups facing North (or South) so position 3 works correctly?

Well, it's a switch. It just is. There are no rules ... I'm sure there are more ways to use them than what I've thought of, so my advice is for you to not feel 'limited' by what they can do.

My challenge here is that I'm operating on the brink of my understanding of this topic: I don't have any formal training/education in electronics, nor much of a repertoire of rules, yet. I read and read and try to make sense, but often plow ahead, and then suddenly feel like Wile E Coyote dangling in mid air just off the edge of the cliff! I am greatly appreciative of folks giving their time and patience to help me out.

My challenge here is that I'm operating on the brink of my understanding of this topic

I'm the same way myself!
I struggle to understand how the pickups work, get frustrated when some pickup makers arbitrarily assign different colors to different leads, and resort to the internet for answers. For me the pickups are the hard part, and I try to keep that separated as much as possible from the puzzle of the actual wiring. Segregate and contain your knowledge

Thanks, guys. What I thought would be a simple diagram check has turned into some important info gap-filling for me. The guitar in question is getting body finish now, with the neck needing frets and final shaping. I'll post when it's complete.

Ok, I need to have my head checked on one more detail, but I think it solves my problem with out-of-phase wiring.

So, I want to wire up my pickups slugs out, blades in. If the polarity is the same in both, the neck pickup should be slug-North, blade-South; the bridge pickup should be blade-North, slug-South. Right?

Now, here's my problem: I put black/white leads on the blades, and red/green leads on the slugs, which I then matched up with my black/white/red/green hookup wire. This means that if I have the pickups positioned opposite of one another, whether that be slugs in or out, I'm going to end up out-of-phase in position 3, because they're now wired to the switch oppositely (which is what you guys have been kindly telling me all along). In other words, the switch is seeing this:

To remedy this, I'll need to switch the hot and ground on the neck pickup, like this:

Does this necessitate any changes to the inside/outside coi split connections on the Super Switch, or is it as simple as swapping the black and green?

Here's my long-term solution to this problem: only use black-start and white-finish leads on all coils, THEN make sure my hookup wire comes off the humbucker as black/white-North and red/green-South. I think that's what folks typically do (or something like that), but I was taking the color-coding all the way back to the leads, which led to my confusion.

Since I'm still confused about pickups in general, and your (unnamed) pickups in particular, the only advice I can offer is to leave your leads long enough to move them around during the testing and debugging phase. Giving yourself a little 'slack' (literally) allows you to change the hardware implementation to meet the needs of the design. Once the thing is as you want it, then tighten up all the connections.

You can build your pickups however you like, and use any color you like.

However, This is the industry more or less accepted standard.
1. Humbuckers wound Counter Clockwise (CCW) looking down from the top.(right side top going, or Left side bottom going)
2. Humbuckers, North Magnet Edge on Slug Coil, South edge on Screw coil keeper bar.
3. Humbuckers, Output on Start of Slug coil, Ground on Start of Screw coil, with Finish leads tied together.
4. Humbuckers, 4-wire Most accepted is SeymourDuncan layout, black to Slug Coil Start, White to Slug Finish, Green to Start of Screw coil, and red to finish of Screw coil.

I like to follow this layout because it matches all the great SD wiring diagrams.
YMMV,
T

You can build your pickups however you like, and use any color you like.

However, This is the industry more or less accepted standard.
1. Humbuckers wound Counter Clockwise (CCW) looking down from the top.(right side top going, or Left side bottom going)
2. Humbuckers, North Magnet Edge on Slug Coil, South edge on Screw coil keeper bar.
3. Humbuckers, Output on Start of Slug coil, Ground on Start of Screw coil, with Finish leads tied together.
4. Humbuckers, 4-wire Most accepted is SeymourDuncan layout, black to Slug Coil Start, White to Slug Finish, Green to Start of Screw coil, and red to finish of Screw coil.

I like to follow this layout because it matches all the great SD wiring diagrams.
YMMV,
T

Ok, let me see how I check out here...
1. Check.
2. Now this is where I'm getting confused. On a typical humbucker setup, the neck and bridge pickups are arranged so the slugs are in and the screws are out, right? So that means North is in and South is out, right? Does this fix my original diagram (circled in blue)?
The polarity is still opposite in switch position 3, though. And in position 2 and 4, the inside or outside coils will have the same polarity, which will not be humbucking. This is why I suggested in my previous post that the magnets be oriented North toward the neck and South toward, regardless of the coil type (slug, screw, blade, whatever), and that the black and green be swapped when going to the switch.
3. My fixed diagram above now shows this (except I used blades instead of screws).
4. Yes, that's what my fixed diagram now shows.

That may work, but that layout makes me dizzy.
One thing that really doesn't help.
You lay the colored pickups out like a regular guitar, with the neck on top and the bridge on bottom.
But on the switch you show the bridge pickup on top and the neck on the bottom.
That just confuses the hell out of me, when tracing through the diagram.
I suggest redoing the switch layout, showing the bridge on the bottom to match the other pictures.
Then we could make more sense of it!
I still like the SD layout, it is much easier to trace.
T

Technicians Run the World, but Bankers, Lawyers, and Accountants, Take All The Credit!
Keep Rockin! B_T
Terry

I don't make pickups, I just use 'em, and as far as I know SD makes all their pickups to the same spec with regards to polarity and lead colors. This helps reduce, and possibly prevent, the confusion that arises over mixing and matching. I think I know what you did and why you did it; so that a matched hum-cancelling pair could be made from two blades, and another from two slugs. Do I have that right?
So as long as the N coils are wound the same and have the same color leads (and the S coils likewise) then the hookup drawing from whichever company will work, no problem.

Ok, let's toss my confusing diagram. I'm not going to use it anymore, but was trying to illustrate a point that I'm still struggling with.

Let's say I buy a set of SD humbuckers that I want to put in my guitar. Neck is wound to ~8k, slugs north, screws south; bridge is wound to ~9k, slugs north, screws south. Both pickups have a black hot wire coming off the north coil, a green ground coming off the south coil, and red and white that will be joined for series wiring.

Time to put them in the guitar. Do I:
A- Install them both with north up? This would allow inside north-south and outside north-south combinations on positions 2 and 4.
B- Install the bridge pickup with north up and the neck pickup with north down? This is what you see on many guitars (screws out), but now an inside coils combo would be north-north, and outside would be south-south in positions 2 and 4.

If the only difference between neck and bridge pickups in most sets is the turns count, how do you mount them to get the correct polarity for all the combos of humbuckers and single coils we're talking about here?

Time to put them in the guitar. Do I:
A- Install them both with north up? This would allow inside north-south and outside north-south combinations on positions 2 and 4.
B- Install the bridge pickup with north up and the neck pickup with north down? This is what you see on many guitars (screws out), but now an inside coils combo would be north-north, and outside would be south-south in positions 2 and 4.

Are you dismantling the pickups and reassembling them in some fashion? if not, then it doesn't matter electrically what you do to physical orientation. If you do want NS pairs of slugs and blades, then swap the coils and the magnets in one of the pickups. Then wire it up according to manufacturer's diagram.

There will be those who say they can hear the difference when a pickup is rotated for the slugs to be closer or farther away from the bridge (is that 'up' and 'down'? See, I don't even know that much) but in my opinion it's merely for aesthetics. You can try it either way.

I appreciate your patience, guys. Going alllll the way back to the top: these are my hand-wound pickups, and this diagram illustrates as exactly as possible what I'm trying to do. I tried to clean up the orientation of the neck/bridge and switch numbers for less dizziness.
Don't worry about the fact that the neck has north blade and south slug and the bridge has north slug and south blade. Does it work?

One thing you may want to consider is that in position 2 the unused coil of the bridge pickup is still connected to the output. The other end is not cot connected and this may pick up interference. I would run the jumper to terminal 2 on the lower right pole of the switch tying all 1-4 together so the two ends of the coil are connected in position 4. This effectively removes the coil, I believe this helps reject RF interference.

One thing you may want to consider is that in position 2 the unused coil of the bridge pickup is still connected to the output. The other end is not cot connected and this may pick up interference. I would run the jumper to terminal 2 on the lower right pole of the switch tying all 1-4 together so the two ends of the coil are connected in position 4. This effectively removes the coil, I believe this helps reject RF interference.

I don't follow?
When I try to follow your directions, I always short out or tie something together?
If the cable is a shielded cable and leads are kept short, I've had no issue.
I've run them that way many times, without problems.
T

Technicians Run the World, but Bankers, Lawyers, and Accountants, Take All The Credit!
Keep Rockin! B_T
Terry

One thing you may want to consider is that in position 2 the unused coil of the bridge pickup is still connected to the output. The other end is not cot connected and this may pick up interference. I would run the jumper to terminal 2 on the lower right pole of the switch tying all 1-4 together so the two ends of the coil are connected in position 4. This effectively removes the coil, I believe this helps reject RF interference.

I'm not going to say you're wrong, because my understanding is hanging on by a thread, but the coil cutting method in my diagram came from the DiMarzio diagram I referenced in my original post. The way I understand it, the link from the right side to the left side of the switch on terminals 2 and 4 bypasses the black/white coil path by connecting the hot directly to the red. The grounding of terminals 2 and 4 on the left side of the switch short out the red/green path by connecting the ground directly to the white. In both cases, the unused coil is still "alive" and sending signal to the switch, but since there's no connection on the right terminal (the empty 2 and 4 coming from the pickup hot), it's just empty when the switch wiper arrives and it's disconnected.

Did any of that actually make sense, or is in any way true? Like I said, I'm barely hangin' on here, and taking notes so I don't forget this in 24 hours.

The four poles are arranged differently but it's essentially the same as your wiring. The only difference is where you have the black wire connected to terminals 2, 3, 5 on the neck pickup and 1, 3, 4 on the bridge pickup, this wiring also connects the neck to terminal 4 and the bridge to terminal 2. This connects both ends of the unused coil to the output as opposed to having one end of the coil hanging. I have read (can't remember where) that this may act as an antenna and pick up RF and I do my pickup wiring to account for this. I haven't tried it the other way so it may be a non-issue. I was just playing around with a spare pickup and it seemed like it had less hum touching both wires to the tip of the cable than with one but it was so inconsistent that I hesitate to draw conclusions.

Your wiring is hum cancelling in all positions so if you pick up noise in positions 2 and 4 this may be the cause. If you don't then I've been making extra work for myself. Let us know how it comes out.

Wow, so that's yet another way of wiring up these Super Switches. So versatile!

Basically, you can break the 4 poles up into 4 quadrants and use them pretty much interchangeably. On my diagram, based on the DiMarzio, I used the right side to bring the pickups in, and the left side to do the coil cutting. The Seymour Duncan diagram that Terry cites is the opposite. This SevenString diagram brings the pickups in on the bottom row (when looking at the switch flat), ties those two poles together with a hot, and does the coil splitting on the top row (inside coils on the upper left, outside on the upper right). And yes, Richard, this is the only diagram that fully connects each pickup to all the switching positions that they are involved with.

Here's something else to consider: I put my diagram up on the MIMF for inspection, as well, and a guy named Joshua over there says, yes, your phases are all correct, but the whole thing is basically wired in parallel. As he's looking at it, the pickups come in on the left separately, do all their switching combinations separately, and then leave the switch on the right together, never actually lining up in series (the - from one pickup or coil connected to the + of the next). I can see how he came to that conclusion, and you can see that in all of these examples. But again, my diagram is a couple soldering points different than the DiMarzio diagram (the guys who make the switch!), which is probably being used in thousands of guitars, and you'd think the smart folks at DiMarzio would have thought of that.

I appreciate more people jumping in here to weigh-in on the craziness of this cool switch. Thanks, Richard!

Yes your diagram is in parallel, more or less.
Your humbuckers operate in series, in pos. 1 & 5.
In position 2, 3 & 4 they are in parallel, but do hum cancel.
Personally I prefer parallel.
Richards diagram actually has 3 poles tied to the output, and only one pole, the top right, switches the ground.
It is a very unique wiring diagram, and it also makes me dizzy!
T
**Edit
Here is the link to the full fender blacktop HH document.http://support.fender.com/service_di...8100B_SISD.pdfhttp://support.fender.com/service_di...Cupg1_SISD.pdf

Last edited by big_teee; 07-27-2015 at 06:04 PM.

Technicians Run the World, but Bankers, Lawyers, and Accountants, Take All The Credit!
Keep Rockin! B_T
Terry

I appreciate more people jumping in here to weigh-in on the craziness of this cool switch. Thanks, Richard!

I think everybody who uses one comes up with more ways to wire it!

I like the wiring you've chosen, and I think it would work well with separate volume controls for each pickup. In positions 2 and 4, then, you could dial in the balance between the two single coils for even more variety. Might be interesting.